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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1990s
    Movies - 1990s Movies - O 4 Mins Read

    Outbreak (1995)

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    The inhabitants of Cedar Creek, California, are getting very sick. Quickly.

    Safely contained within the depths of the African rainforest for years a lethal virus has found its way to this small community and is infecting its population.

    It is more deadly than the Black Plague and more contagious than the common cold . . . and it threatens to spread uncontrollably outward: to neighbouring San Francisco; throughout California; across the United States; and, soon after, around the world.

    US Army research physician Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) is in a race against time to find the key to stop the virus before it radiates beyond the small town and wipes out hundreds of thousands.

    He must also outpace his government superiors, who are poised to unleash a plan that will contain the virus in a manner as uncompromisingly lethal as the outbreak itself.

    Daniels has been dispatched by General Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman), his commanding officer at USAMRIID (US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases), to investigate an outbreak of a virulent new virus in Zaire.

    Deep within the dense tropical rainforest there, Sam discovers a village which has been obliterated by a horrific virus with a nearly 100% fatality rate. The population are all now dying or already lie dead and stacked like firewood.

    Sam concludes that the killer virus- called Motaba and ranked one level more dangerous than anthrax, typhus and HIV –  is capable of spreading to the United States – if it hasn’t already – and warns his superior officers to place the country on alert. He also advises his ex-wife, Dr Roberta “Robby” Keough (Rene Russo), who is currently working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of his urgent findings.

    In one scientist’s words, the virus “liquefies” the organs and leaves its victims looking as if a bomb went off inside them.

    Without explanation, however, Sam is taken off the investigation by General Ford and Robby’s supervisors at the CDC refuse to heed the warnings.

    Robby and Sam await the worst. But as time passes and no reports of contagion are received, the medical emergency that could have decimated the country seems, luckily, to have passed.

    Until reports begin flowing into the agencies that people in a small Califonia town are contracting flu-like symptoms, becoming progressively ill and dying within hours of being infected – in the same agonising way as the victims in Africa.

    The worst has come true: the virus has somehow found its way to America.  And it must be stopped.

    Despite their personal differences, Robby and Sam agree to work together – and against their respective superiors – to try to contain the deadly disease before it spreads beyond the small community of Cedar Creek.

    Their race to find an antiviral serum is further threatened by one of the nation’s highest-ranking military officers, General McClintock (Donald Sutherland) who has vowed not to let the virus – or its secret (military) history – out of Cedar Creek at any cost.

    Outbreak is rich with the kind of dialogue no disaster movie should be without, like “Dr Daniels, there’s something I think you should see” and “Sam, why don’t you try to get a little sleep?”

    But it matters little how corny the lines sound because the characters who speak them take a distant second place to the action anyway – helicopter chases and the desperate search for a chattering little monkey who may or may not be the carrier of the virus.

    Colonel Sam Daniels MD
    Dustin Hoffman
    Dr Roberta “Robby” Keough
    Rene Russo
    General Billy Ford
    Morgan Freeman
    Casey Schuler
    Kevin Spacey
    Major Salt
    Cuba Gooding Jr.
    General Donald McClintock
    Donald Sutherland
    Jimbo Scott
    Patrick Dempsey
    Dr Benjamin Iwabi
    Zakes Mokae
    Dr Raswani
    Malick Bowens
    Dr Lisa Aronson
    Susan Lee Hoffman
    Dr Julio Ruiz
    Benito Martinez
    Dr Mascelli
    Bruce Jarchow
    Henry Seward
    Leland Hayward III
    Rudy Alvarez
    Daniel Chodos
    Colonel Briggs
    Dale Dye
    Kate Jeffries
    Kara Keough
    Mrs Jeffries
    Gina Menza
    Mr Jeffries
    Per Didrik Fasmer
    Sherry Mauldin
    Michelle Joyner
    Mack Mauldin
    Donald Forrest
    Erica Mauldin
    Julie Pierce
    Tommy Hull
    Tim Ransom
    Darla Hull
    Michelle M. Miller
    Sandman One
    Maury Sterling
    Sandman One Co-Pilot
    Michael Emanuel
    Viper One Pilot
    Lucas Dudley
    Viper Two Pilot
    Robert Alan Joseph
    Viper Two Co-Pilot
    Joseph Latimore
    Sergeant Wolf
    Matthew Saks
    Mrs Pananides
    Diana Bellamy
    Seaman Chulso Lee
    Johnny Kim
    Alice
    Kellie Overbey
    Corinne
    Dana Andersen
    Mrs Foote
    Patricia Place
    Tracy
    Jenna Byrne
    Tracy’s Father
    Brian Reddy
    Mrs Logan
    Ina Romeo
    Nurse Emma
    Teresa Velarde
    Nurse Jane
    Jane Jenkins
    Mayor Gaddis
    Kurt Boesen
    Police Chief Fowler
    Jack Rader
    George Armistead
    Robert Alan Beuth
    Janet Adams
    Julie Araskog
    Senator Rosales
    Frank Rositani
    Jaffe
    Bruce Isacson
    Sergeant Meyer
    Philip Handy
    Dr Drew Reynolds
    Jim Antonio

    Director
    Wolfgang Petersen

    Video

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